South China Sea

The re-vitalisation of the US-India-Japan Trilateral is a contextual response lately to China’s conflict-escalation in the South China Sea primarily followed by military brinkmanship against Japan in the East China Sea region.

The Indian President’s visit to Vietnam from September 14-17, 2014 is rich in strategic significance and also high in terms of political symbolism indicating India’s relentless initiatives to reinforce the Vietnam-India Strategic Partnership.

(Observations made at Round Table Conference at Danang, Vietnam May 20 2014 by Dr Subhash Kapila following the International Workshop on May 19 2014.)

South China Sea has emerged as an explosive regional and global flashpoint endangering the security and stability of the wider Indo Pacific region. This arises mainly from China’s propensity to use force to settle territorial disputes.

Contemporaneous review of the Asian security landscape would in mid-2014 suggest with clarity that China has emerged as a major threat to Asian security and stability. The China threat palpably raises concerns all over the Indo Pacific.

(Dr Subhash Kapila was invited to participate in an International Workshop at Danang VIETNAM from June 19-22 2014 on South China Sea issues. The theme selected by him for his Presentation is as reflected in the Title and the contents of his Presentation are reproduced below)

Indonesia finally shed its strategic ambiguity in March 2014 on the China-generated South China Sea conflicts by Indonesian officials asserting that China’s Nine Dash Line is in conflict with Indonesia’s maritime sovereignty around the Natuna Inlands in response to increased Chinese military activities in the Southern Segment of the South China Sea.